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New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

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Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#61

Post by whenwillitstop »

corecoder wrote: post #42
whenwillitstop wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's genetics, why is this such a mystery? The whole point of evolution is that you pass on good traits. When people do well, they pair with other people who are good genetically, and through the generations, their children do well. Why is this such a mystery?

Genetics do not work that way. The problem is that there is too little variation inside families and too much among families. Let's say that there are exactly two alleles: successful and not successful. So, successful people pairs with successful people and have successful offspring, as you propose. But then, there should be little variability among successful unrelated families, and that is just not so. Let's say th…

"But then, there should be little variability among successful unrelated families, and that is just not so."

This does not follow from your first statement. It's not a logical conclusion. For your reduction to a binary set of alleles it does, but it does not come close to being an analogy for real life.

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#62

Post by thucydides »

RodericDay wrote: post #35
thucydides wrote: post #30

Here's a crazy thought that's illegal to think nowadays. If you want to avoid crazy, illegal thoughts, please stop reading. Maybe - just maybe - we're not all equal cyphers at birth like we learned in school. Maybe genes are part of the reason a successful person's daughter is successful. Maybe important character traits are heritable. Maybe the 20+ years we spend being raised is less consequential to our character a…

I find it honestly disturbing how, throughout the ages, there's always people desperately trying to justify to themselves their exalted station in society. It's super easy to find examples of old white men talking about how women couldn't handle voting because the blood drain through their ovaries, or racists talking about how the cranial differences explain the difference in intelligence. And yet in 2016, in the fac…

It's a very emotional subject.

Maybe I'm unusual in that respect - genetic differences are not an emotional subject for me. My 3 siblings and I were adopted at birth, all from different parents. From birth, we had the same environment, but the differences between us in terms of intelligence, interests, education, career tracks, The Big 5 - are extremely dramatic. I'd prefer not to discuss my family too much here, so I'll leave an exercise for the reader instead: imagine the largest possible diversity in all of those categories. You would not be far off.

The differences I've seen between my siblings are much, much greater than those I've usually seen between biological siblings. And the studies I've seen have yielded similar conclusions.

My claim in my original post - that DNA and society both play some role in inequality - seems obvious and benign to me.

Honest question: why do you want this to be false? Do you think we have social policies that promote kindness, tolerance, and charity only because we believe everyone is identical?

Wouldn't it be insane to, for example, study the effect of something (anything) on mortality - without asking study participants if they smoke tobacco? How is adjusting for the tobacco confound moral, but adjusting for genetic confounds immoral?

Wouldn't it be better to follow the truth wherever it leads?

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#63

Post by maxxxxx »

shostack wrote: post #60
maxxxxx wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not only genetics. Parents who do well know how the system works and pass that knowledge on to their children. Children who come from poverty have a lot of learning to do and it's hard to do this without role models.

The compounding effects of this learning gap can't be overstated. One of my best friends who is very intelligent and successful came from a working class family that didn't emphasize sound personal finance education to say the least. He kept his savings in HS in his "sock in a drawer" account. I came from an upper middle class family that was the opposite. I was given a share or two of stocks for birthday gifts somet…

Did you want to say "The compounding effects of this learning gap can't be overstated?"

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#64

Post by idrios »

jimmywanger wrote: post #50
corecoder wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, poverty is a problem, more so the seeming fact that people yet to be born is condemned to poverty.

The study mentions nothing about poverty, just how educational levels seem to be preserved across generations.

It's about social/economic mobility and inequality. Poverty is very relevant here

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#65

Post by shostack »

usmeteora wrote: post #43

This is anecdotal in some ways but I think some of my observations can be generalized and observed consistently as I've moved to various places. I have (not a graduate degree but a Bachelors) a degree in Engineering from a top Private University but neither of my parents or their parents even graduated from highschool, much less went to college. I loved to read and learn from a young age, made straight As and thought…

Thank you for your story.

How much weight would you put in the saying that you are the average of your five closest friends? Do you have any close friends who didn't make it out?

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#66

Post by aninhumer »

jrcii wrote: post #23
glup wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this perspective frighteningly cynical and self-perpetuating. Government policy is one of the few mechanisms that has the possibility to address (if not fix) systemic inequality. And I think there's broad agreement across the political spectrum that inequality is a problem; rather, there are disagreements about how to best address it (social welfare and regulation vs. efficient markets). This isn't ammunition…

Your perspective is "frighteningly" naïve, and typical of the left which imbues the government with the imaginary omnipotence to fix any and all problems. mechanisms that has the possibility to address (if not fix) systemic inequality What evidence do you have that this possibility exists at all?

>which imbues the government with the imaginary omnipotence

No it merely recognises that the government, by its nature, is in a unique position to attempt to tackle these problems, because pretty much any other actor has neither the power nor the inclination to do so.

> What evidence do you have that this possibility exists at all?

Perhaps there is none. But unless you can prove that, I'd rather continue trying, because inequality sucks pretty bad.

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#67

Post by jimmywanger »

idrios wrote: post #64
jimmywanger wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The study mentions nothing about poverty, just how educational levels seem to be preserved across generations.

It's about social/economic mobility and inequality. Poverty is very relevant here

FTA: The study focuses specifically on how the educational attainment of families changes over time, which the researchers use as a proxy for economic mobility.

That use as a proxy has not been justified. It is a massive cognitive leap. Nobody brought up poverty in the article.

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#68

Post by corecoder »

whenwillitstop wrote: post #61
corecoder wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genetics do not work that way. The problem is that there is too little variation inside families and too much among families. Let's say that there are exactly two alleles: successful and not successful. So, successful people pairs with successful people and have successful offspring, as you propose. But then, there should be little variability among successful unrelated families, and that is just not so. Let's say th…

"But then, there should be little variability among successful unrelated families, and that is just not so." This does not follow from your first statement. It's not a logical conclusion. For your reduction to a binary set of alleles it does, but it does not come close to being an analogy for real life.

Let me try to be more clear: I make two opposite hypotheses: two alleles versus many alleles. The two alleles hypothesis would imply little variability among families, many alleles would imply much variability inside families. Where is my logical error?

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#69

Post by aninhumer »

thucydides wrote: post #62
RodericDay wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it honestly disturbing how, throughout the ages, there's always people desperately trying to justify to themselves their exalted station in society. It's super easy to find examples of old white men talking about how women couldn't handle voting because the blood drain through their ovaries, or racists talking about how the cranial differences explain the difference in intelligence. And yet in 2016, in the fac…

It's a very emotional subject. Maybe I'm unusual in that respect - genetic differences are not an emotional subject for me. My 3 siblings and I were adopted at birth, all from different parents. From birth, we had the same environment, but the differences between us in terms of intelligence, interests, education, career tracks, The Big 5 - are extremely dramatic. I'd prefer not to discuss my family too much here, so…

Of course genetics is a factor (and I think you're overplaying the rejection of that), but to what extent does it explain inequality?

Now I haven't personally looked into it in detail, but I'm guessing that, since it's obvious as you say, some studies on inequality have indeed considered genetics. And I think that if the answer was "Yeah, poor people were all just born too dumb to be rich" it would probably have been a pretty big story, and brought up often in these debates.

Since it hasn't, I'm guessing the answer is that it's more complicated than that. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#70

Post by usmeteora »

shostack wrote: post #65
usmeteora wrote: post #43

This is anecdotal in some ways but I think some of my observations can be generalized and observed consistently as I've moved to various places. I have (not a graduate degree but a Bachelors) a degree in Engineering from a top Private University but neither of my parents or their parents even graduated from highschool, much less went to college. I loved to read and learn from a young age, made straight As and thought…

Thank you for your story. How much weight would you put in the saying that you are the average of your five closest friends? Do you have any close friends who didn't make it out?

1. Yeh I would put alot of weight into that. It is honestly some of my closest friends now who said they saw potential in me when I was at my weakest who helped me and put me in touch with other good people.

My exboyfriend and his friends were all Engineers but graduated and wanted to live a comfortable life. I was supposed to marry him and cater to him until I found out he was cheating on me. I left him but the hard part was we had a tight knit group of 20 mutual friends. They were my life but I had to leave them because they all wanted to treat eachother like shit and get comfortable.

It was REALLY hard for 6 months I felt like I had no friends but if I did not have those times I Would have never met the new people in my life, one of which also ended up leaving that group. She is my age and the CEO of a multimillion dollar company. From her I have met so many amazing people and when I share my story they are like "oh yeh I know those kind of people i DO NOT spend time with them."

Then it makes me feel less crazy. When you are an outlier, its more likely people say you are "crazy" what is crazy? Crazy is an extreme outlier. The key is to not be an outlier, by surrounding yourself with people like you..

My ex actually made me believe there was something wrong with me but thats because I was not hanging around other really motivated people who wanted to spend more time doing cool things and less time on drinking and drama. In that circle I was crazy. Even though I act exactly the same, in my new circle, people think I'm awesome and they all really want me to do well.

I look back at my friends from two years ago and I cringe wondering why I ever put up with it. Slightly embarassed I did. When I fly home to visit my family and see their lives, it depresses me.

Definitely want to surround yourself with people who challenge you, not make your feel like "you work too hard. youre crazy. everyone treats eachother this way were ok with it you should be ok with it too."

Thats a self esteem killer.

Oh sorry did not answer second question.

2. Yes I have friends from my hometown who are heroine addicts, and no I cannot be too close to them because they end up asking for money and it causes alot of tension in the relationship.

And yes most of my female friends, even the highly educated ones, actually are settling for men who they have lots of problems with but they are comfortable with eachother because they have been together for so long. THey have given up good jobs to move to their boyfriends new jobs even though their boyfriends would not do the same for them. It's hard to see smart motivated girls slowly settle over time and our lives go in different directions, but already years later I look back and look at their lives and know I made the right decision for myself.

If you are an attractive smart female in tech, alot of guys want to date you. I think that makes it really easy for a female in that position to actually marry another successful person and get comfortable spending more time on the relationship than on their career. There will always be men vying for that spot.

It was a tad weird because I Expected women in tech, like the females I met at Engineering school to be very feminist and independent, but because they are a scarce and highly coveted resource, men rise to the challenge to accomodate them and alot of women get comfortable with that.

Would I say they didn't make it? I dont know about that. They will live financially successful lives still and live at the upper income. Will they reach their full potential that way? No, but I could ask myself that question everyday and always push myself harder.

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